13.1: Traits of Bureaucracies

A bureaucracy is a formal, hierarchical organization for delegating tasks and duties. The term was coined in the 18^th century to describe the French government, which at the time consisted of many administrative offices staffed by professional civil servants. Contrasted with democracy, or rule (kratia) by the people (demos), bureaucracy signified rule by officials, bureau being the French word for “desk” or “office.” (The undemocratic implication, of course, was that political power had been taken from the people and given to officials instead.)

In the context of American politics, “the bureaucracy” usually means the vast network of departments and agencies within the executive branch of the national government. However, bureaucracies also exist at other governmental levels and in many nongovernmental aspects of society, including businesses, religious denominations, and educational institutions. Virtually anything that could be considered an organization of some sort operates more or less according to bureaucratic principles, with a leadership structure made up of multiple members with distinct duties and responsibilities.

German sociologist Max Weber was one of the first to study the concept of bureaucracy scientifically. Recognizing that the European countries of his time increasingly relied on these complex organizations to manage governmental affairs, Weber examined several bureaucracies to determine what features contributed to their success. In doing so, he identified several traits that characterized an ideal bureaucracy.

In Weber’s view, a bureaucracy should take the form of a hierarchy, an organizational structure in which each individual bureaucrat is superior or inferior to at least one other bureaucrat. This structure make it clear who outranks whom in the bureaucracy. It also allows for communication to flow through an orderly chain of command. Instead of the boss at the top of the hierarchy issuing orders to and receiving reports from the people at the bottom, messages are passed through the intermediate levels of the hierarchy to keep everyone’s responsibilities as manageable as possible.

Weber’s ideal bureaucracy leverages the principle of division of labor, assigning each member a specific set of related duties. This enables specialization: instead of striving to be good at everything a bureaucracy does, each bureaucrat can concentrate on mastering a small number of skills. For a similar reason, bureaucracies should be staffed with expert officials, selected based on their ability to fulfill the duties of their positions, and their continued employment and potential promotion should likewise be based on the quality of their performance.

Bureaucracies endeavor to rely as much as possible on rule-based decision-making. Any task performed by bureaucrats should be done according to well-defined and standardized procedures. Some discretion may be unavoidable, but bureaucrats should be made to follow strict protocols rather than improvising as much as possible, as this will ensure fair and equal treatment across different situations.

Weber viewed bureaucracy as rational and efficient, necessary for the administration of a modern country. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that bureaucracy’s dedication to rule-based decision-making can have a dehumanizing effect on people if it makes them feel like animals or objects being processed by a machine rather than individual and unique human beings. (If your last experience with “customer service” over the telephone involved talking to someone who sounded bored, stuck to a script, and didn’t seem to recognize or care about you as a real person with wants and needs, you may have experienced a taste of bureaucracy’s potential to dehumanize.)